


Leo Atrox

by liketreesinnovember



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Consensual Underage Sex, Death in Childbirth, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:22:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23367646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketreesinnovember/pseuds/liketreesinnovember
Summary: Cersei x Tyrion, Twins AUCersei, for her part, loves the little beast. He is her twin, an imperfect mirror through which she sees both the beauty and the ugliness of her own existence.
Relationships: Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister/Tyrion Lannister, Joanna Lannister/Tywin Lannister
Comments: 11
Kudos: 61





	Leo Atrox

Outside the birthing room, Tywin waits. He waits for a long time and when the maester comes, he brings the smell of blood. Tywin enters the room where his wife waits, the room with the blood. Tywin wants to see his heir, wants to hold him, but…

“There are two,” his wife says.

Two.  _ Twins _ ...but neither is the heir that he expects. Cersei and Jaime, they are called, but something is wrong. Girl and boy, split like the seven aspects of god, but one is…

“A dwarf,” the maester says. “I shouldn’t think he will live past infancy.”

“My Jaime…” Tywin looks down at the two babes, one perfect and beautiful (but a girl), the other small and twisted. A poor copy, shriveled limbs weakly clinging to his sister.

“No, not our Jaime,” Joanna says. “We will try again.”

But they don’t, for years, because the maesters say Joanna is too delicate. She begs Tywin, screams at him. He is the weak one, she says. It was his seed, planted inside her like a withering fungus, that forced her to carry in her body such a mangled creature, to live in her own damaged body after a piece of her had been cut out of it.

The babe, the twisted one, is called Tyrion, the name of a Lannister king known for making women bleed. Tywin thinks the name an apt one, more apt than the name he’d been given at birth, since the babe seems to draw the life more and more from Joanna with each passing week, month, year.

It’s a common practice, the unnaming of a child not expected to live. Jaime won’t die, but Tyrion will die in his place.

With the passage of time, however, it becomes more clear that Tyrion will live. This is the trade off, Tywin realizes, his Joanna’s life for the life of this ugly, malformed thing.

Cersei is perfect, a little lioness in her own right, although she becomes more like Joanna each day, while the shadow that was the proud Lady of Casterly Rock grows weaker still.

Cersei, for her part, loves the little beast. He is her twin, an imperfect mirror through which she sees both the beauty and the ugliness of her own existence. She learns to walk faster, to do everything faster, and Tyrion can never keep up on his stunted little legs, but when he falls she gives him her hand. She excels at her lessons and Tyrion’s, too, and one day she tells Tywin that she’ll be the heir that he wants, the heir that Tyrion can’t be, and it’s okay because she’ll help Tyrion, she’ll keep him safe. But father only frowns at her and sends her away.

This is when Cersei truly knows, for the first time. She can’t be what her father needs. She can’t help mother and she can’t save Tyrion from the destiny that is his by birthright, the one that he can never live up to and the one that should have been hers.

“I hate him so much,” Tyrion cries into her arms, one day when father has been especially cruel. Cersei enfolds her brother in the safety of her body, knowing silently what it is to both love someone and hate them at the same time. She loves and hates her little brother the way she loves and hates herself, because he is herself, the only one that truly understands her own ugliness. Everyone else calls her beautiful and Tyrion does, too, but Tyrion’s the only one who can really mean it. 

They are careful, so careful, not to get caught. Cersei knows about women’s bodies and she teaches Tyrion how to make sure that he doesn’t spill inside her, and he is always careful, her brother. He surpasses her in care and cleverness if nothing else, perhaps because everything else took him longer.

Although the maesters say she is too old, too frail, Joanna Lannister’s belly swells triumphantly once again with child. In all her stubborn vainglory, she brings to term a healthy baby boy. This is the tradeoff, her last act of defiance against the world. Tywin Lannister gets the son he always wanted, and Joanna gets to die.

Tyrion’s little brother is golden and beautiful, and as the days pass it becomes increasingly clear that he will be what Tyrion could not, the perfect Lannister heir. Father dotes on Jaime, despite - or perhaps to make up for - the fact that he killed mother, and even Cersei gets over her jealousy to coo at the babe’s bedside.

One day when the nursemaid is occupied elsewhere, Tyrion stands in front of little Jaime’s crib. Already the boy's head is curly like a lamb’s, and when he looks up at Tyrion he laughs and sticks his tiny, fat fingers in his mouth.

Tyrion grasps the stuffed lion that has been thrown to one side of the crib and presses it over the boy's face until he begins to sputter and scream. Tyrion watches his little brother’s face turn blue until the nursemaid runs into the room and Tyrion drops the stuffed lion and stands by the crib. The woman scoops up the crying baby and ignores him, leaving the stuffed lion forgotten on the floor.

When Tyrion is thirteen, he meets a peasant girl and falls in love, and the two play at keeping house for a fortnight until Cersei whispers in father's ear. She lays Tyrion’s head against her breast as he weeps, and strokes his fine, thin, white-blond hair, speaking softly. It wasn't his fault, she says, poor ugly little thing. Didn't he know what would happen? Didn't he know better than to trust anyone but her? Wasn't she the only one in the world who could love him, the one who loved him best, her twisted other half?

Jaime grows to be a fine young man, the golden heir that Tywin always wanted. It’s not fair, Cersei tells Tyrion one night. “He’ll have everything we can’t have. It’s not fair.”

Tyrion muses on what to do about it. It’s not fair, although Cersei doesn’t yet understand how truly unfair it is. “You make him love you,” he finally says. “You make him love you and he won’t be a threat to us.”

“You’ll be jealous,” Cersei teases, her hands trailing lightly over his bare chest. “My poor ugly brother. It’ll drive you mad.”

“Of course it will,” Tyrion grins, and it’s enough to make her ache for him again. “You always drive me mad, sister.”

Cersei laughs.

After the Rebellion, she marries Robert Baratheon, and a few years later Jaime is appointed as a member of the kingsguard. The King is a brute, but Cersei’s brother is golden and handsome. When Cersei takes Jaime to her bed it feels like a betrayal to her own body, but cuckolding her drunken oaf of a husband and king is delicious, and the thought of her other half, envious and lustful and mad for her, is divine.

Her twin is so smart, and so stupid, sometimes.

Eventually Cersei is able to convince Robert to make Tyrion his Hand. Tyrion compliments her on her ability to so whole-heartedly adopt his advice. “Who knew that you’d be so good at making men fall at your feet?” he says.

For that comment, especially, she makes Tyrion get on his knees for her.

"I want to give you a son," Tyrion says, resting his head on her stomach. "Joffrey should have been mine."

"You can't." Cersei pushes him off her. "Robert would know. What if the child were a dwarf?"

"It would be half of you," he says. "I'm half of you." He tries to kiss her but she shoves him away again.

Jaime comes to Tyrion’s solar one evening, looking for answers, for reassurance, for whatever it is men like his brother, tall men, handsome men, come looking for. “I can’t bear it,” he pleads. “Watching her with that brute. And ever since he brought Stark here…He’s getting too close, Tyrion.”   


“Yes,” Tyrion agrees. He might have found the irony delicious, if he were someone else. “You want to know how to help our sister? Kill Robert for her. Stark, too, if necessary, though if the pie I’m baking comes to fruition, you won’t have to dirty your hands that way. Your son will become king, and…” Tyrion makes a gesture as if licking his fingers after a meal.

“And if I take the fall for Robert’s murder?”

“You won’t,” Tyrion says, reassuringly. Jaime will take the bait. Tyrion almost reassures himself, that time.

Robert meets with an unfortunate hunting accident, but Jaime is too reckless and Ned Stark too much of a nuisance than any of them had anticipated. Still, Tyrion is careful, so careful. Ned Stark goes to the wall and his daughters remain for Joffrey to play with. Unfortunate, that last part, but it’s a small price to pay, Tyrion thinks, now that he and Cersei can finally rule everything, the way they were always meant to.

Jaime is the last piece, the one that doesn’t quite fit. And he loves their sister, the imbecile. He’ll go to war for her and Tyrion will fuck her. Tyrion will make sure her children stay in power, the ones that should have been his.

If the pride male in a group of lions feels threatened by another, younger male, the other may be driven out or killed. Lions are beautiful because they deal in absolutes. That was why Joanna had loved them. No plans, no sentimentalities, just swift violence.

**Author's Note:**

> If you look up the title, you'll get Leo Panthera Atrox, the Latin name for the American lion. Here, I'm using the literal Latin translation, which means something like "terrible lion."


End file.
